The only known militant to survive the Beslan school siege was convicted in the deaths of 331 people — many of them children — and sentenced to life in prison Friday, touching off an emotional scene in which mothers of some victims tried to attack the defendant in court.

Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for Nur-Pashi Kulayev, but Russia imposed a moratorium on capital punishment when it joined the Council of Europe a decade ago.

. . . .

“Kulayev deserves the death penalty, but is sentenced to life in prison because a moratorium is in place,” Judge Tamerlan Aguzarov said.

The L.A. Times supports Bill Clinton for U.N. Secretary-General, arguing that he is popular throughout the world. In a quote I swear I am not making up, the editors say:

Clinton also could bridge the growing divide between Washington and much of the world. He has been all but beatified in Africa, where his foundation has negotiated big discounts on drugs for treating AIDS. European heads of state eat out of his hand, and even the most hostile elements in the Arab world respect him as a peacemaker. He is so well known in China that a condom has been named after him, and his support in the U.S. cuts a swath across the ideological and socioeconomic spectrum, from billionaires to evangelicals to inner-city minorities.

See, you don’t believe me. You think that the part in bold is something I inserted for humor purposes.

The Security Council nominates a Secretary-General to the General Assembly which then votes to appoint the Council’s choice. The Security Council is barred from nominating an individual that is from one of Security Council’s five permanent members (China, France, Russia, UK, U.S.

So when the editorial says:

It would be unprecedented for a secretary-general to hail from a country that is among the Security Council’s five permanent members.

Well, there’s a reason for that.

Maybe there’s an exception for people who have Chinese condoms named after them.

(Note: “The Power of the Jump”™ is a semi-regular feature of this site, documenting examples of the Los Angeles Times’s use of its back pages to hide information that its editors don’t want you to see.)

Numerous studies show that the overwhelming majority of readers do not bother to follow the story past the jump line [where a front-page story continues on to the back pages]. . . . By the way, everybody at the newspapers is acutely aware of this syndrome. I recently spoke to a Dog Trainer reporter and expressed my concern that the story he was writing would bury the relevant facts on the back pages. I told him that it was my impression that most readers do not follow stories past the jump. He forthrightly replied: “That’s what all the studies show.”

I was reminded of this fact when I read a story on the front page of this morning’s L.A. Times about the death of an inmate in L.A. County jail. The story explains that there is a lawsuit over whether the death was a suicide, or the result of beatings and neglect.

The paper gives you plenty of facts up front to support the theory that the inmate was killed by someone else, including: 1) broken bones and bruises that are inconsistent with self-inflicted wounds; 2) a snapped neck bone consistent with strangulation; 3) allegations that a deputy training as a boxer was responsible; and 4) evidence that he was deprived of medical care, mocked, and beaten. That’s a pretty good summary of all the facts reported in the entire article supporting that theory:

A Death in Lockup

Officials say a depressed and ailing Compton auto mechanic hanged himself shortly before his release. But the family contends he was taunted and beaten by a jailer.

On a Saturday in the summer of 2002, Ramon Gavira was pulled over for drunk driving and taken to Los Angeles County Jail.

Five days after his arrest, the 43-year-old father of five was dead.

Guards say they found Gavira dangling from the bars of a one-man cell with a torn bedsheet tightly knotted around his neck. Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives and the coroner concluded that he had killed himself.

But when Gavira’s brothers saw his bruised and battered body at the funeral home a few days later, they began to suspect there was more to the story.

Gavira’s body had six broken ribs, a broken collarbone and bruises that would be hard for any man to inflict upon himself. Most curious was a snapped neck bone that medical experts say is more often seen when someone has been strangled by a pair of hands.

Since then, Gavira’s family has been pressing a wrongful-death lawsuit that is set for trial early next year. A spokesman for Sheriff Lee Baca was adamant that Gavira committed suicide, and cast his death as an unavoidable tragedy in an understaffed and overcrowded jail system — the nation’s largest.

Regardless of how he died, testimony and other evidence suggest that Gavira — mentally frail and withdrawing from alcohol from the moment he entered custody — was deprived of medical care, mocked and beaten during his brief stint behind bars.

In addition, records and interviews show that sheriff’s officials did little to determine how Gavira sustained such severe injuries, brushing aside allegations that a female deputy — who trains as a boxer — might have been responsible.

Attorney Michael Gennaco, who serves as an independent watchdog over the Sheriff’s Department, said he could not comment on specifics because of the litigation. But he said he was convinced that Gavira was not slain.

[See Jail, Page A24]

Okay, so you have the controversy. Either he killed himself or he was killed by someone else. A fair article will give you the main facts supporting each theory, up front.

You just saw the summary of the facts supporting the theory that he was killed by someone else. Now, what facts does the paper give you on the front page to support the theory that he killed himself? These facts are much more limited: 1) he was found “dangling from the bars of a one-man cell with a torn bedsheet tightly knotted around his neck”; and 2) he was depressed and mentally frail.

Now, let me ask you to assume — just for the sake of argument — that he had twice previously tried to commit suicide. And that he told jailers upon intake that he was suicidal.

Ya think that might be important?

Ya think that might tend to support the idea that he killed himself?

You already know what’s coming next. Let’s turn all the way to Page A24 and see what we find:

Gavira spent most of July 9 being processed.

He was examined by a nurse and a doctor, records show. He was diagnosed as depressed, diabetic and suffering from alcohol withdrawal. A jail employee indicated on a form that Gavira, in responding to a standard series of questions, said he was hearing voices, had contemplated suicide in the past and was now thinking about it again.

During a separate interview hours later with Carmen Lima, a jail social worker, Gavira cried and expressed concern for his family.

“He was blaming himself for being in jail for drinking,” Lima recalled during a court deposition.

Gavira told Lima that years before, he had twice tried suicide by wrecking his car. But he said he did not recall having told anyone that he was currently suicidal.

So, in this controversy over whether the inmate committed suicide, the paper waits until Page A24 to tell you that he was suicidal upon entering the jail, and had twice tried to commit suicide before.

Judas H. Priest on a popsicle stick.

Why do we have to wait until Page A24 to read this?

Is it because, if the story had used the word “suicidal” instead of “depressed” or “mentally frail” on the front page, it would have lost a good deal of its punch?

And yet what do you think the reporters and editors would tell you if you complained about this? They’d look at you with a blank face, blink a few times, and say condescendingly, as if you hadn’t read the story: “We reported it! And we said on the front page that he was depressed and mentally frail.”

The truth is, the reporters and editors waited to report the full truth about this inmate’s suicidal tendencies until the 19th paragraph, where they knew they would fall on the back pages. And they know that most readers won’t turn back that far.

This technique does not inspire confidence that the rest of the facts are being set forth in a fair manner. Sure, reporting the facts this way heightens the drama. But it’s not good journalism.

The New York Times has an article about John Kerry and the Swift Vets. No, you haven’t entered a time machine. It’s just that John Kerry is bringing it up again, for some reason.

The article says:

Mr. Kerry has signed forms authorizing the Navy to release his record — something he resisted during the campaign — and hired a researcher to comb the naval archives in Washington for records that could pinpoint his whereabouts during dates of the incidents in dispute.

He has “signed forms authorizing the Navy to release his record” — but to whom? Himself? As I noted in June 2005, when Kerry previously signed the Form 180, all of the records first passed through Kerry’s office. From there, they went into the hands of friendly journalists — journalists who then claimed that the records were now complete, even though they had made the same claim earlier, during the campaign.

Tom Maguire points to at least a couple of items that you’d think would be found in a complete set of records — yet still appear to be missing:

(1) Show us Kerry’s diary, aka the “War Notes”. Surely his first combat and first medal merited a contemporaneous account, yes? But that has never been made public, and Brinkley does not refer to Kerry’s notes for that portion of his Kerry biography.

(2) Show us the paperwork backing the first Purple Heart – it should include a witness statement of the circumstances surrounding his wound; Kerry never released that during the campaign.

The New York Times article also claims:

Naval records and accounts from other sailors contradicted almost every claim [the Swift Vets] made, and some members of the group who had earlier praised Mr. Kerry’s heroism contradicted themselves.

I’ll spot the Times the latter part of that statement. But I don’t agree that naval records contradicted “almost every claim they made.” I have previously observed that the people who make this claim are often the ones with a very tenuous grasp of the facts of the claims — such as the New York Times‘s own Nick Kristof. And when the L.A. Times made a similar claim, in an editorial about the Swift Vets titled “These Charges Are False,” I asked this question:

[W]hich charges are they talking about, anyway? The ones about John Kerry claiming he was in Cambodia in Christmas 1968? The claim that John Kerry initially sought a deferment to avoid the Vietnam war? The claim that he joined the Naval Reserves, rather than the Navy, at a time when men his age who believed they would be drafted anyway often chose the Naval Reserves as a safer route? The claim that, when Kerry initially volunteered for Swift boat service, it was considered relatively safe? The claim that John Kerry knew that three Purple Hearts would get him an expedited ticket home? The claim that his wounds were all relatively minor? The claim that he managed to use those minor wounds to shave about 8 months off the expected length of his tour of duty?

Can you identify even one specific and material SwiftVets allegation that you believe to have been fully “debunked” or fully proven to be “unsubstantiated”?

I am not aware that anyone ever met the challenge, though many tried. Read through his comments for some examples.

If anything is going to raise Beldar from his blogging slumber, this is it. I have sent him an e-mail with a link to the Times story. I hope to hear from him soon.

P.S. One other point from the Times article that I can’t let slide:

Another photograph provides evidence for Mr. Kerry’s version of how he won the Bronze Star. And original reports pulled from the naval archives contradict the charge that he drafted his own accounts of various incidents — which left room, the Swift boat group had argued, to embellish them.

Yet Tom Maguire (link above), who has followed this closely, says:

The Washington Post took a good look at one incident (Kerry’s Bronze Star), ran a pro-Kerry headline, and concluded that they could not sort it out. The WaPo did not research the possibility (really, a high probability) that Kerry himself wrote the report on which the Navy records are based.

The last information I had about this, I told you about here. It was a pretty convincing analysis that strongly supported the conclusion that John Kerry wrote the after-action report for the Bronze Star incident in which he pulled James Rassmann out of the water. If there is something new debunking this analysis, I haven’t heard about it, and neither has Tom Maguire. If it’s out there, I’m sure someone will let me know.

But I’m not trusting that something is true just because I read it in the New York Times. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The Swift boat group insisted that no boats had gone to Cambodia. But Mr. Kerry’s researcher, using Vietnam-era military maps and spot reports from the naval archives showing coordinates for his boat, traced his path from Ha Tien toward Cambodia on a mission that records say was to insert Navy Seals.

They respond:

You see, some records indicating that his boat went toward Cambodia at some point prove he was in Cambodia at Christmas-time in 1968.

One time, we drove from Los Angeles north towards Sacramento. This proves we were in Oregon in 1968.

Good point.

UPDATE: Unlike the records released to Stephen Braun, which were released by Kerry’s Senate office (see link above), the records released to the Boston Globe‘s Michael Kranish were apparently released to the paper directly from the Navy. (Thanks to Psyberian for the pointer.) But without Kerry releasing them to the public, this means nothing to me, because I don’t trust Kranish. To see why, read this post and the links cited therein.

UPDATE x2 [9-14-06]: Apparently all of the Form 180s called for the documents to be sent to the journalists themselves; you can see them here. Braun simply worded the story poorly, leaving the impression that they had been released though Kerry’s office.

A recent L.A. Times story on the alleged Haditha massacre (Probe Finds Marines Killed Unarmed Iraqi Civilians, May 26), says that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) was briefed by Marine Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee before Murtha went to the press to denounce the killings:

Hagee briefed key congressional leaders on the upcoming report. One of those, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a retired Marine colonel, said later that Marines “killed innocent civilians in cold blood.”

As I have already said, the truth of the allegations is paramount — and if they are true, someone needs to be executed. But it’s still a valid (if minor) question whether Murtha spouted off before the report was completed. The L.A. Times makes it sound as though it’s clear that the report was done, and Murtha was fully briefed, before he said a word. Maybe he just got ahead of the news cycle, in other words.

It’s possible, I guess. But I’m not so sure.

I’m interested to see if there is anything factual to bear this out, or whether the paper simply made (yet another) mistake.

Bloggers won the Apple appeal yesterday in a California appeals court. (Via Howard Bashman.) Bloggers in California are now entitled to the protections of the state’s shield law (and the First Amendment too! go figure), and can keep their sources confidential just like “real” journalists.

Props to Calblog‘s Justene Adamec, and to Jeff Lewis of SoCalLawBlog, who has more here, including the text of the decision. Congratulations also to the members of the Bear Flag League who helped Justene and Jeff write the League’s amicus brief in the case.

We often hear about “turning points” in the Iraq war. As far as public sentiment goes, this may be one — and in the wrong direction:

Photographs taken by a Marine intelligence team have convinced investigators that a Marine unit killed as many as 24 unarmed Iraqis, some of them “execution-style,” in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha after a roadside bomb killed an American in November, officials close to the investigation said Friday.

The pictures are said to show wounds to the upper bodies of the victims, who included several women and six children. Some were shot in the head and some in the back, congressional and defense officials said.

I tend to agree with Dafydd ab Hugh on this one: I’d like to see the results of the investigation released publicly before we come to any firm conclusions. We’re still relying on reports from anonymous government officials.

But if these reports are substantiated (and you sure get the feeling that they will be), the guilty individuals should be tried, and if convicted, executed. Swiftly. I think there is some merit to Dafydd’s idea that “those convicted should be hanged and the rest of the Corps forced to stand at attention and watch.”

I meant to post about this last week when Murtha was making the rounds but I got caught up in other things. Yeah, it’s awful and par for the course that he’d pronounce the Marines guilty before the investigation is complete; and yeah, no one’s surprised that he’d exploit the incident to promote a pullout. But it rubbed me the wrong way to watch righty bloggers go ballistic on Murtha while dismissing the underlying allegations with a perfunctory “these are serious charges.” I’m not accusing anyone of not caring, mind you; this is Hot Air, not the Daily Dish. I’m just saying that it’s bad form to kill the messenger when serious malfeasance might be afoot. Not unlike how lefties reacted to the Swift Vets, to take a more benign example.

He has his usual thorough round-up of links.

I agree with all this, except that it doesn’t appear to me that Murtha “pronounce[d] the Marines guilty before the investigation is complete.” From a recent L.A. Times article:

If Murtha was briefed before he made his statements, then righty bloggers who slammed him were wrong to do so. I’m not a fan of his, but I don’t see any fault on his part in this incident.

UPDATE x2: Then again, it is the L.A. Times. Perhaps we should question whether they got this detail right. Here is a story saying the Senate Armed Services Committee was briefed two days ago, on May 25. Yet Murtha made his comments on May 18. Did Hagee brief Murtha before May 18?

UPDATE x3: I can’t find any evidence that Hagee briefed Murtha before Murtha made his accusations. I’ll have to write the Times Readers’ Rep and ask if they’re sure about this.

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